


Save It for Something Bigger

by Mangoesaregood8



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Arcades, Best Friends, Cotton Candy Fluff, Cute, Dates, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Friendship/Love, Games, High School, M/M, Minor Prompto Argentum/Noctis Lucis Caelum, Promptis - Freeform, Summer, Summer Vacation, ffxvminibang, video games - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-29
Updated: 2019-12-29
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:38:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22014031
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mangoesaregood8/pseuds/Mangoesaregood8
Summary: After a grueling week of finals, school is finally out for the summer.  Noctis and Prompto reward themselves with a trip to the arcade to beat the heat and unwind from a long school year.
Relationships: Prompto Argentum/Noctis Lucis Caelum
Comments: 2
Kudos: 26
Collections: FFXV Minibang 2019





	Save It for Something Bigger

"OMG, I thought that exam was never gonna end.” Prompto slumped back against his locker with a huff. “Two hundred questions? That's way too many. I barely finished. I hate math."

"Me too." Noctis shoved another book into his bag and closed his locker. "I thought I was gonna run out of time before I could finish."

"I heard the other classes were allowed to use formula sheets for the exam."

“What? No way!” Noctis scowled. “How is that fair? We had to memorize everything?”

"I know, it sucks, but think about how steep that grading curve is gonna be though."

"Yeah, but if I don't pass, my dad's gonna kill me." Noctis slung his bag over his shoulder and winced. It was finally summer vacation, and he had a mountain of homework to finish before the start of his last year of school. Then again, that was a problem for another day. He couldn't wait to be done with school. One more year, then no more homework, no more teachers, and no more waking up early to get to class. He would have to give up the privacy of his apartment, but how private was it really when Ignis had the other key? At least the Citadel was big enough to give him his own space. 

"With how hard those tests are?" Prompto asked. "He has to curve every single one."

"Yeah, because he's a horrible teacher. I didn't learn anything in that class. I don't even understand half of my notes. I had to look up how to do the problems for homework."

"Oh." "Prompto's face fell. "Good luck buddy."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing!" Prompto bumped his shoulder against Noctis's. “Hey, are you doing anything tonight?”

“What?” Noctis was thrown by the sudden change of subject. “Uh… Other than homework? I don’t think so. Why?”

“Do you want to hit up the arcade with me? I got my allowance this morning, so I can cover myself this time,” Prompto said.

Noctis looked at his phone. “My dad’s in meetings all day today, so sure.”

“Sweet! I heard they got a new shooter game last week. I can’t wait to check it out!”

“I bet you I could kick your butt at it too,” Noctis said with a confident smirk.

“What? No way! I’m way better at shooters that you.”

“But I’m the better gamer.”

“Oh yeah? You’ll have to prove it when we get there.” Prompto readjusted his bag and walked faster.

“Hey wait up! The arcade isn’t going anywhere.” Noctis moved quicker to try to keep up with Prompto’s excited pace.

They walked together through the winding streets of Insomnia, passing other students on their way home from classes, and others who were on their way home from work. They turned the corner and stopped outside the entrance to the arcade. It was a decent size for being in the heart of the city. The open sign blinked temptingly at the boys as they stared in through the windows.

“What are you waiting for? Let’s go.” Noctis walked through the door with Prompto right on his heels. The blast of cool air that hit them as they walked inside felt refreshing after walking around in the summer heat.

They made their way over to the change machine and exchanged their money for tokens. Prompto rushed over to the newest machine and inserted a coin before picking up the plastic handgun. “Ready to see the master at work?”

Noctis pulled up a stool and sat next to Prompto. “Master huh?”

“Watch and learn.” The game started, and targets popped up randomly across the screen. Prompto aimed and fired, hitting each target with ease as they flashed across the screen. A bonus target flickered across the screen and Prompto fired as quickly as he could, his finger moving faster than Noctis thought possible. The game ended and Prompto set the gun down. 

"Not bad Blondie. You made it to the leaderboard," Noctis said. 

"I told ya I was a master."

"If you’re so good let's see you get the top score then." Noctis leaned back on his stool and crossed his arms over his chest.

"First place? No problem." Prompto smiled nervously as he pushed two more tokens into the machine. He braced himself as he prepared for the targets, making sure to aim carefully to improve his accuracy. The game ended and Prompto's score flashed across the screen. 

"Still not the top score,” Noctis teased.

“Wait, I can do better! I had something in my eye,” Prompto said. “Let me try it again.”

Noctis shook his head with a smirk. “Let’s go play something else.”

“Fine,” he pouted. He set the gun down and followed Noctis to the next game.

“How about that thing?” Noctis asked.

“Huh?” Prompto looked up at a tall screen and watched as colored piano keys scrolled down the screen. “What’s that?”

“You’ve never played it before?” Noctis sat down on the bench, picking the blue tiles. “You have to press the keys when they light up to get points. And you get tickets for every key you hit. Some of the keys give you bonus tickets. It’s easy.”

“Okay!” Prompto sat down next to Noctis and inserted a few coins to get the game started. “I’m sure I can get the top score on this.”

“I doubt it.” Noctis tossed in a few coins to get his side started.

The screen counted down and the game began. Blue and green tiles slid down the screen as Noctis and Prompto scrambled to hit every one. Noctis was able to track the tiles with ease, his hands gracefully gliding over the keys as he pressed them in time with the tiles moving on the screen. Prompto was having a bit more trouble with his tiles. He had slipped up on a few of the keys, causing his game to pause with every mistake. The timer counted down, getting closer and closer to zero. Prompto was hitting all of the keys frantically, but his haste caused him to miss even more of them. The timer didn’t bother Noctis. He kept a steady tempo, carefully watching which key he would have to hit next.

The game ended and their scores flashed on the screen.

“Looks like I got the top score,” Noctis said with a confident smirk.

Prompto’s score didn’t even make it on the leaderboard.

“How’d you do that?” Prompto watched in awe as Noctis entered his initials for his score. He scored well over one hundred points, giving him a twenty point lead over second place.

“I told you it’s easy,” Noctis said.

“I want a rematch!” Prompto demanded. “I was just warming up. Now that I know how to play I can do better.”

“Yeah right.”

They started a new game, but it ended with similar results. Prompto still didn’t make it onto the leaderboard, but he at least beat his old score. Noctis had also beat his score, taking first place once again.

“You have to be cheating. How are you scoring so high?” Prompto asked.

“I’m not cheating. It’s called skill. I play this every time I go to the arcade. Having a little bit of hand eye coordination helps too.”

Prompto frowned and looked away. “Why don’t we go play something else? I don’t think I like this game very much.”

“Someone’s a sore loser.”

“Am not!”

Noctis snickered as he looked around the arcade. Most of the other schools in the city had also finished their finals, so there were plenty of other high school students wandering from machine to machine. 

“Looks like there’s a few open spots at skee ball. Come on Noct!” Prompto grabbed Noctis by the arm and dragged him towards the new game.

“Slow down! You don’t have to run around everywhere.” Noctis struggled to keep up with Prompto’s pace.

“I know I can beat you at this one for sure.” Prompto waited for the balls to be released and lined up where he should roll the ball to get it into the highest valued ring.

“You said that about the last game.” Noctis waited for his own balls to release. Skee ball wasn’t his favorite game, and he wasn’t particularly good at his, but he couldn’t be so bad that Prompto would beat him, right? That’s what he thought until he saw Prompto landing multiple shots into the 100 point ring.

“You’re leaning too far forward,” Noctis said. “You’re cheating.”

“It’s only cheating when you’re standing on the ramp. No cheating here.” Prompto rolled another ball and it landed in the 100 point ring.

Noctis huffed and tried to line up better for his next turn. He only made it into the 30 point ring. He tried again, but this time he missed the rings completely. He tried again, but still missed. He had half of his balls left. Maybe he could still try to catch up.

That thought left him when he turned to see Prompto’s score. Prompto was already several thousand points ahead of him. 

“Something wrong Noct? I thought you were good at games like these.”

“Not really…” Noctis rolled his balls as quickly as he could, wanting the game to be over with as soon as possible. “I’m picking the next game.”

“You don’t like skee ball?” Prompto asked.

“No.” Noctis looked around, trying to find anything that caught his attention. “Hey, is that a fishing game?”

“I’m surprised you didn’t find it sooner. We passed it like three times. Wanna check it out?”

“Yeah!” Noctis hurried to the game and looked up at the giant wheel. Each segment of the wheel had a different number on it. “So how do you play?”

“You pull down on the lever and try to land on a big number. The bigger the number, the more tickets you’ll win,” Prompto explained.

Noctis frowned and looked up at the screen above the wheel. A large bass was swimming around on the screen between different sized hooks. “It’s not a very good fishing game…”

“Give it a try, Noct.”

“Alright.” Noctis inserted a coin to start the game. He lifted the lever and pushed it down as hard as he could. The wheel started spinning. Noctis and Prompto watched as the wheel started to slow down and finally stopped.

“Only four tickets?” Noctis complained.

“Better luck next time buddy.”

“Let’s go find something else. I don’t think I like this one. It’s all luck. How about…” Noctis looked around. “That one.” He pointed to a game further down the aisle. “I know I’m good at that one.”

“What is it exactly?” Prompto watched as a dragon flew around a building on the screen.. Then the screen itself caught his attention. There were four stations, and each screen was tilted to form a pyramid. 

“It’s a stacking game. You have to stack all fifty levels of blocks without getting distracted. If you do, you win a thousand tickets.

“Distracted by what?”

“Anything really. The dragon flies around and makes it hard to see what you’re doing. And you only get one try per level. If the block passes your building all the way, you lose,” Noctis explained.

“If you’re so good at it, why don’t you show me how it’s done?”

“No problem.” Noctis knelt in front of the machine so he could see better. He took a deep breath before starting the game. The first few levels were easy. The blocks moved slowly across the screen, allowing Noctis plenty of time to make sure they lined up. The blocks moved faster with each level. Noctis was able to keep them fully intact towards the bottom of the tower, but as they climbed higher, small sections of the blocks got cut off, leaving Noctis less to work with as the tower grew taller. He made it to the last ten levels, but then the dragon started flying around the tower, making it hard for Noctis to see where the blocks were supposed to line up. The dragon passed right in front of the tower as Noctis tried to line up the last block, causing him to miss.

“Dammit. I was so close too,” Noctis scowled.

“Yeah. You think I could give it a try?” Prompto asked.

“Sure. Go for it.” Noctis scooted to the side to give Prompto room to play. 

Prompto had little trouble with the first few levels, but quickly grew frustrated as large sections of the blocks were shaved away with each level. He didn’t even make it to the halfway mark before the game ended. “This is a lot harder than it looks…”

“Let me show you a trick,” Noctis said.

“There’s a trick to this?”

“There’s a trick to every skill game. Move over.”

Noctis started the game again, and stacked the first few levels. “What you want to do is line up the corners when you’re stacking them. That way you don’t lose as much of the block each time.” Noctis concentrated as his tower neared the top again. The dragon flew around his tower at the last ten levels again, but this time he was prepared. The used the timing of the passing blocks as a guide and stacked the tower all the way to the top. 

“Hey, you did it!” Prompto cheered.

Lights flashed above the machine as it started spitting out tickets.

“We might be here for a while,” Noctis said as he watched tickets slide out of the game. “You wanna go find something else to do?”

“Sure! I’ll be back.” Prompto scurried off to the back of the arcade.

Noctis waited for the tickets to finish distributing before he picked them up. He folded them to make them easier to carry before counting them. Some of the machines were known for running out of tickets before they finished dispensing them.

Prompto came back as Noctis finished counting the tickets with two bags in hand.

“What’s that you got there?” Noctis asked.

“Cotton candy! I got one for each of us,” Prompto said as he held out one of the bags. He had gotten them both blue ones.

“Thanks.” Noctis did his best to shove the tickets in his pocket before he took the bag. He opened it, savoring the sugary smell that wafted from the bag. He took a handful and nibbled at it, doing his best to keep his fingers from getting sticky.

Prompto happily nibbled on his cotton candy, practically bouncing behind Noctis as they walked around the arcade. “Anything else you wanna do while we’re here? I should probably start heading home soon.”

“Really? Come on, it’s the first day of summer break. You really wanna spend the day doing homework?”

“Well…” Prompto bit his lip and looked away.

“Well what?”

Prompto shook his head. “It’s nothing!” He shoved a wad of cotton candy in his mouth, hoping to end the conversation.

“Uh huh…” Noctis decided not to press further. He was having such a good time though. Did Prompto really have to leave so soon? He couldn’t remember the last time they had gone to the arcade together. Now that it was summer, he hoped they would be able to come back more frequently.

“Hey, what about that game?” Prompto asked.

“That one?” Noctis followed Prompto’s gaze to a hammer and a scale. “Looks more like a game for Gladio. You really think you’re strong enough for that?”

“Look again, Noct. It’s a game of skill, not strength.”

Noctis rolled his eyes. “So you think you’re skilled enough to win?”

“Yeah, I do. Just watch.” Prompto picked up the hammer and tested its weight before hitting the red button on the game with it. Lights flashed, climbing toward the top of the scale, and stopped just below the top. “Wait, let me try again.” Prompto hit the button again, but this time the lights hit the top then creeped back down.

“Too hard that time?” Noctis asked.

“Yeah. Let me try one more time.” Prompto hit the button again, and this time he hit the jackpot. “See! I told you I could do it.”

“I guess you are good at at least one of the games around here.”

“Don’t forget, I kicked your butt at skee ball.”

“Yeah, yeah. Don’t remind me.”

Prompto picked up his tickets and stuck them in his bag.

“You think you have time for one more game?” Noctis asked.

Prompto checked the time on his phone. “I think so. What did you want to do?

“Follow me.” Noctis led Prompto through the arcade to a game with different prizes inside, varying from little trinkets, to other prizes that were much more valuable.

Prompto looked inside the case to see all of the different prizes. “They’re giving out new phones and cameras? And they’re not the cheap ones either. How much does it cost to play this?”

“No more than any other game. It’s not easy to win the big prizes, you know.”

“You think you can do it?” Prompto asked as he stared longingly at one of the bigger prizes. “That camera looks really nice. I wouldn’t mind getting one like that. Just imagine all of the pictures I could take. I could make a scrapbook of all the things we’re gonna do this summer.”

“Do you want me to try and win it for you?” Noctis asked.

“You’d do that?”

“Yeah. Why wouldn’t I?” Noctis pulled a stool over and got comfortable before starting the game. Rows of cubes passed across the screen. Noctis waited until the were in the center before pushing the button. The cubes froze and the next row moved across the screen. With each successful stack, the cubes moved faster and faster. Noctis took his time, letting his eyes follow each cube’s movement. As they climbed closer to the top, the number of cubes he had to work with dwindled from three to one. He had already passed the minor prize line, but one misstep here would end the game.

Prompto held his breath and stood as still as possible as Noctis stacked the cubes higher and higher. He didn’t want to distract his friend and make him lose the game.

Now Noctis was on the last line. One more successful stack and he would win the game. He bit his lip as he carefully studied the speed of the cube. He took a deep breath and pushed the button.

The cube stopped on the top of the tower, and a bell started ringing.

“You did it Noct!”

Noctis selected the camera as his prize and watched as a crane lowered it into a slot so he could get it out. He took the box and handed it to Prompto. “Here you go.”

“Thanks!” Prompto immediately opened the box and looked at the camera. It had more knobs and switches than he knew what to do with. “I’m definitely gonna have to practice with this.” He put the camera back in the box and tucked it into his bag. “How did you get so good at that?”

“Practice really. Remember when I broke my phone a few months ago and my dad said he wasn’t going to buy me a new one because he didn’t think I was responsible enough to care for it properly?”

“Yeah. It’s not broken anymore though. Did he change his mind?”

“No. You know how he is. I got a new phone here. I kept playing till I won.”

“I guess that’s cheaper than going out and buying a new one. Isn’t it?” He had no idea how long it took Noctis to win.

“It is. I’ve had practice with other stacking games, so this one’s not too hard.”

“Speaking of phones…” Prompto checked the time. “I really should go home now. I don’t want my parents to get worried or anything. They didn’t know I had anything to do after school today.”

“Yeah. Hey, wait! What are we gonna do with all of our tickets?”

Prompto thought for a moment. “Wanna come back tomorrow? We can save them up for a big prize. I saw a few game consoles behind the ticket counter. Maybe I could win one so we can play online together.”

“Sounds like a plan. Just so you know, I’m a lot better at video games than I am skee ball.”

“We’ll see about that,” Prompto said with a smirk.

Noctis reached into his pocket and pulled out his tickets to hand them to Prompto.

“What’s this for?”

“You’re saving up for that game console right? You’re gonna need all the help you can get.”

“But you won these. Don’t you want to keep them?”

Noctis shrugged. “I didn’t see anything up there that caught my eye. You take them.”

“If you’re sure it’s alright…”

“I wouldn’t be offering if it wasn’t.”

“I guess so.” Prompto smiled and shoved the tickets into his bag. It was a tight fit with all of his school books and camera in the way. “Thanks buddy.”

“No problem.”

“So, I guess I’ll see you tomorrow?” Prompto tightened his grip on his bag.

“Yeah. I’ll see you then.”


End file.
